In conventional transplanters and seed planters, there is normally provided a soil opener for opening the soil to receive plants or seeds. Typically, such soil openers have been of the direct mechanical displacement. Moreover, individuals have in the past recognized the advantage that would be offered by a "spot" opener, i.e., a soil opener that would form spaced apart cavities in the soil as opposed to a continuous furrow opening. However, an economical and reliable spot opener design has not been commercially developed to date. In the case of both the furrow and spot openers, the designers have used a direct mechanical structure to engage the soil and to displace the same in the formation of the plant or seed receiving furrow or cavity. By a direct mechanical structure one refers to a plow-like device for continually opening a furrow in the soil or a spot displacement device that is designed to physically engage the soil and remove or displace the soil at various row spacing intervals.
This direct mechanical ground engaging type of design that has been so prevalent in the design of transplanters and seed planters of the past has necessarily placed certain limitations on the efficiency and capacity of such transplanters and seed planters. Principally, the direct mechanical soil engaging design does not lend itself to high speed, high capacity automatic planting that could be achieved with an automatic transplanter of the basic design shown in U.S. Pat. No. 3,446,164. In addition, the utilization of direct mechanical structure to engage the soil, especially in the case of a furrow opening design, consumes substantial power from the propelling system plus encounters difficulty in rough and rugged terrain particularly where stumps and the like may be present such as in a forestry transplanting operation.